Nefertiti
-Chrissie

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            Nefertiti is one of the best-known Egyptian queens, the wife of Amenhotep IV/Akhenaten. We know almost nothing of her childhood, not even her parents’ names. She was unquestionably from a wealthy family, as she is recorded as having a wet-nurse and a tutor, possibly one from the royal household. It has been suggested that she was a daughter of Amenhotep III, and so sister to her husband, but the sources do not give her the honorific titles usually associated with a royal birth, and the pharaonic traditions of sibling marriage would not have prevented such acknowledgement.

            She and Amenhotep IV married in the fourth year of his reign, he was in his late twenties or early thirties, she was between 11 and 16. She became his Great Royal Wife, a position that gave her primacy over any of the pharaoh’s other wives. She birthed their first child about a year after they were married, a daughter named Meritaten. Five more daughters followed over the next decade, but no sons.

            In the fifth year of his reign, Amenhotep IV rededicated himself, his rule, and his kingdom to the god Aten, the disk of the Sun. He also removed his court and the center of government from the city of Memphis to a new location, the city of Akhetaten (modern-day Tell el Amarna), dedicated to the Aten without any of the trappings of the other gods. These changes have been explained in many ways over the centuries, from the seemingly obvious—Akhenaten felt a genuine connection and dedication to the god, to the eminently practical—he sought to reduce the power of the priests of the other cults by reorienting society to a god for whom he was the primary intercessor, to the patently absurd—he was an alien. Whatever the reason (and I’m confident in saying it’s not because he was an alien), it upended Egyptian society while also asserting the absolute power of the pharaoh. Nefertiti worked alongside her husband to institute these changes. When he changed his name to Akhenaten, to reflect his new patron god, the whole court did as well. Nefertiti became Neferneferuaten Nefertiti, adding to her name rather than changing it completely.

            It or around the twelfth year of Akhenaten’s reign, Nefertiti seems to disappear from the record. It is from this point that Nefertiti’s life must be pieced together from images and chronicles and logical connections between the bits of information. Meritaten is listed as the Great Royal Wife shortly before this, which led many to believe that Nefertiti had died and been replaced with one of their daughters. Another of their daughters, Ankhesenpaaten, also held the position alongside her sister. At about the same time, a person named Ankhkheperure Neferneferuaten, ruling alongside Akhenaten as his co-king and successor. This is now believed to be Nefertiti. Why the king’s wife had taken on the position of the king’s successor we cannot saw with any certainty. Some point to their lack of sons, though we know Akhenaten had at least one son with another of his harem (Tutankhaten). Others point to the fact that the co-king seems to have taken on the administrative duties of the pharaoh, essentially ruling the country while Akhenaten focused on his religion and new city; in this case, it’s possible that his wife was the only person Akhenaten felt he could trust in this role.

            Akhenaten died in the seventeenth year of his rule, and the fifth of the co-rule with Neferneferuaten. At his death is the first time we see his son, Tutankhaten, mentioned at all. He was not, however, Akhenaten’s immediate successor, this fell to a person named Ankhkheperure Smenkhkare. This new pharaoh is also named as husband to Meritaten and Ankhesenpaaten, both daughters of Nefertiti and Ankhenaten, both of whom had previously held the role of Great Royal Wife for their father. This pharaoh was traditionally believed to be a brother or son of Akhenaten, and putting aside any connection with Nefertiti, it has been long understood that Ankhkheperure Neferneferuaten and Ankhkheperure Smenkhkare are the same person, so if the former was the queen-turned-king, the latter is her continuing the role. There are few images of Smenkhkare, but most show the pharaoh dressed in a combination of male and female clothing. The fact this king had wives is often pointed to as evidence he could not have been Nefertiti, but the wives listed are the daughters who had also held the position for Akhenaten, a useful position for them to retain while their mother ruled (there was, after all, no such thing as a Great Royal Husband).  

            Smenkhkare’s rule lasts just two years. During this time, the pharaoh began to dismantle the religious and societal changes created by Akhenaten, a task continued by the next pharaoh, Tutankhaten, better known as Tutankhamun. His background is difficult to work out: we know from DNA testing done on his mummy that he was a product of incest and that he was a son of Akhenaten. And, because the source material tells us that Nefertiti was not Akhenaten’s sister, Nefertiti is not his mother. It has been suggested that he is the product of a union between Akhenaten and one of his daughters, which would account for the DNA evidence, thereby making him Nefertiti’s grandson.[1]  We can’t know with certainty until more information is revealed, either in the form of chronicles, histories, or inscriptions, or through DNA extracted from other members of the royal family.

            Nefertiti’s burial place has never been identified, though there are a few possibilities: she may have been buried in the same tomb as Amunhotep II, identified as a mummy called “The Younger Lady;” she may be in a group of mummies excavated in 1898 and now in the British Museum; or, she may be hidden in an as-yet unexplored chamber attached to the tomb of Tutankhamun.

[1] See Kara Cooney, When Women Ruled the World: The Queens of Egypt.